@Lordie,
David Bohm, who wrote "thought as a system", a book you may be interested in, would argue that the only way we can become free of our "conditioning", which includes the conditioning of the way we think about various things and the way we respond to the events in our lives, we must cultivate what he calls "Proprioception of thought", which will allow us to observe the thought process, rather than trying to act on it in any way, by trying to suppress it etc.
I think your right when you say how people tend to "follow the same path", inasmuch as people who do not reflect on their own thought processes will always be lead by them, and consequently will not be free from their habitual thought processes. Bohm talks about what he calls "reflexes", which are thought processes which have become deeply engrained into the "system", effecting the chemistry of the brain.
if we can engage in a "dialogue" with our own thought process, then we can begin to identify those reflexes, which have been operating "under the radar" without full conscious awareness.
People can become so deeply enmeshed in particular ways of thinking, that the structure of their own thought processes become obscure to them. The interpretive aspect of thought, once its become habitual and regular, seems to become obscured within the process. Thought is somewhat similar to any activity that one repeats on a regular basis; if someone repeats a physical activity over and over again, it may initially require conscious thought and effort, but after a short while, the muscles become familiar with the movements, and it becomes automatic, and less conscious thought is needed to perform the action. The same thing applies in the activity of thought, in that if one repeats a thought process over and over again, the conscious awareness of that thought process gradually diminishes, until the structure and process of thought is no longer in conscious awareness, but has become habitual, and automatic.